Monday, August 29, 2016

"I Saw the Light"

Hank Williams came to Hollywood in April of 1952 to talk to Dore Schary at MGM about a proposed film project. As an introduction to that scene in the biopic of the singer "I Saw the Light" (Sony Pictures Classics, 2015) we get a 15 second snippet of stock footage featuring the Chinese.The film, directed by Marc Abraham, stars Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen.

Kurt Wahlner, curator of the Grauman's Chinese history website graumanschinese.org, notes that they got the year right but the footage was actually shot a bit later. He says: "My extensive
research indicates that it was taken in October or November of that
year, as all the large forecourt trees were trimmed in October, 1952.
This shot has the bushier palm trees, but the tree in the corner has
been clipped already."